On January 25th, Amos Lee released his new album called Mission Bell and it's an album you have to add to your collection immediately. CG caught up with Amos to find out all about this inspiring new project and get to know the man behind this soulful music a whole lot better.

CosmoGirl: When did you know you could sing? How did you find out you had this gift?

Amos Lee: Well, I mean it's sort of like...I used to sing along with a lot of stuff when I was younger. I used to sing along to Boyz II Men and I would sing along to Luther Vandross. But, I never really considered singing out in the world until I did it. I played at an open mic and people were pretty into it, so at that point I felt like 'Oh, this is something I should probably be doing more of.'

CG: Whatis Mission Bell? What does it mean and why is it the title track?

AL: Well, it probably of means a lot of different things, as I'm sure you were semi expecting me to say. The Mission Bell to me stands for something that survives a great change or a relic that kind of casts beauty upon a hardened land. And, that's what I felt about this record when I made it. There's a lot of reevaluation. There's a lot of soul searching that was involved in the songwriting for this record. I felt like it was about, in a lot of ways, a huge transition phase for me. Sort of a changing of lands and I feel like this is the relic that survived all that hardship.

CG: You expanded your horizons and included some pretty stellar collaborations on Mission Bell. How did you decide who to collaborate with? How did it feel to share the creative process with another artist?

AL: It was something that I've become more and more interested in over the past couple of years because, at a certain point with my thing, I mean you're so focused on "you" all the time. You're the songwriter and you're the performer but the collaborative spirit of music was something I wanted to be more into so I kept on thinking about 'who' and 'how' and 'what' and then it just came to be with these people.

CG: What about girls? How much of your music is influenced by past relationships? Girls you're in love with, girls who have broken your heart? I guess what we're getting at is...was there really a southern girl?

AL: Well...I don't know anyone who is a writer who isn't influenced by the relationships in their life. You need a strong sense of 'otherness' to be able to create in your life. So, there always is an influence be it romantic or be it platonic or adversarial or friendly. You know, you write about what you know in life. Your life can dictate to the song and the song can dictate to the life. In some ways, there's a real interesting balance between what you're going through and what the situation in the song is. The way I like to put it is, and I'm not telling you that I put myself on the level of DaVinci cause I don't, but it's a really interesting thing when you think about the Mona Lisa and people who have studied it. They say it was as much her as it was him. I think a lot of the songwriting that I've done is the same way. It's part me, and it's part them, you know. It's part the situation and it might be part... well it all depends on the person we're talking about.

AL: Yeah, that was probably the most biographic song I've ever written, like purely biographical. I generally tend to blend things because not everything is about me. There aren't as many situations that I find as interesting in my own life to write about as other peoples. I really like to take as much from the experience that's surrounding me as I do with the personal relationships that I have. But I try not to put too much of that stuff in there, because not all of it is interesting.

CG: What do you look for in a girl? Do you have any celeb crushes?

AL: I like down to earth people. I don't really hang out with a lot of celebrities. I don't really get peripheral crushes that much. I like to know a person and know what their vibe is and know what they're about before I really get that interested in them.

Are you a fan of Amos Lee? Tell us why you love his music in the comments section below!